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To: NEURO --CMSNAMES
From: Greg Niznik
Graduate Student in Anatomical Science and Neurobiology
Phone: (502)588-0835
Subject: spinal cord injury models
I am a grad student doing my dissertation on various pharmacological methods
of preventing secondary spinal cord injury. We are presently using the
modified aneurism clip method (Rivlin and Tator) to produce injuries in rats.
My problem with this model is that in my hands, I am unable to produce
consistant behavoral and histological outcomes between animals that receive
the same degree of injury. I am making my lesions at T1, am using a 60g clip
that I am leaving on the cord for a total of 1 minute.
I am thinking of switching over to the weight drop method. This, to my
knowledge, is presently the gold standard. I don't have any experience with
this method and don't have a good feel if it would produce more consistant
injuries. I am aware that there are several different weight drop devices but
I don't know where I should start in deciding which one I should try.
If anyone has experience with the different weight drop methods, and/or has
compared these to the clip method, I would appreciate your input.
Thanks in advance,
Greg Niznik
Dept of Anatomical Science and Neurobiology
University of Louisville
Louisville KY
BITNET: GENIZN01 at ULKYVM.BITNET